


Spinning Light

by Ramzes



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 05:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15879549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: Morgase Trakand got the throne Tigraine Mantear abandoned - and she clearly wanted it since she fought for it. She also got the son Tigraine abandoned - and she wanted him. Eventually.





	Spinning Light

Sometimes, Morgase could swear that the Queen had the gift of a true Aes Sedai, slightly changed as it was. Mordrellen  Mantear could not make herself look ageless but on a few of the occasions when her mother had brought her to attend dispensing justice and other formal functions carried out by the Queen, she had been late – which had won her a stern glance and a silent promise of a _talk_ later. In these occasions, she had had the chance to spot the arrival of Mordrellen who, of course, came last, as her rank allowed her. Secure in the knowledge that the entire court was safely inside, the Queen had let her face express her true feelings, the concern, the despair that had taken her after her son’s disappearance. She looked far older than her ears, stooped, and ashen-faced. But the moment she neared the double doors, her gait changed and she entered to deal with her work with an impassive face and regal bearing, every inch the Queen. Even Morgase’s mother could not inspire such awe, not look so beautiful and majestic as she sat in judgment, received ambassadors, or heard petitioners. Once or twice, Morgase had tarried behind after the work for the day had been finished and a look cast covertly when she should have been left – Mordrellen certainly thought that everyone had – had revealed an old woman again, bent over and too small for the throne.

“She is a woman of worth,” was her mother’s short appraisal and Morgase agreed. She could not imagine how one could be this heartbroken and still manage not just to do her duties but maintain such regal looks while doing them.

The Daughter-Heir was another matter. She did not even try to hide her grief. Morgase had only seen her a couple of times after her  son’s birth but she had been shocked by the change in her appearance. Everyone said that the easy birth of a healthy child was a turning point in the life of every woman, a blessing, but Tigraine actually looked worse than she had in her last months of pregnancy. People in Caemlyn whispered that she still cared about her brother’s disappearance more than her son’s birth and although Morgase had no brother and was not looking forward to becoming a mother, always having doubted the conventional wisdom that children were the greatest blessing in the world, she felt that this was a bit too much, The young woman looked barely capable of dealing with life, let alone a kingdom. Right now, she was holding the baby and asking after Morgase’s plans to return to the White Tower in a few weeks. Sitting in the garden, near a bush of roses, she looked impossibly beautiful and fragile. Listening to Morgase and showing her son the white flowers at the same time…

“I wish I could return there,” she said  after a while, after Morgase had gone silent.

“Perhaps you will,” the girl said because she did not know what else to say. Not that her words mattered. She wondered how was it possible that the Daughter-Heir had changed so much. Morgase had never lived at court permanently but she remembered a Tigraine from a few years ago, serious and engrossed in her studies or cheerful and mischievous but always shining from the inside and bathed in sunlight. Bathed in sunlight…

“Yes, perhaps,” Tigraine said slowly and smiled at her son. “You will like it there, Galad. Once I give you a sister, your going there will be a certain thing. This is the most unusual place under the Light.”

To Morgase, this description did not sound much like the White Tower that she lived in but perhaps it was different when one was the Daughter-Heir. But she was struck by Tigraine’s casual certainty that she would have a girl. Right now, she looked like someone who belonged in a sickbed, not making plans for another child.

Tigraine nodded, as if she had guessed what Morgase was thinking about. “Yes, you’re right. But I’ll recover soon enough. Gitara Sedai says that in a few months, I’ll be riding for hours without pause.”

Morgase almost shook her head because such level of trust was unfathomable to her. She trusted Aes Sedai, of course, but in Tigraine’s place, she would have given some careful consideration to what this particular Aes Sedai thought was the truth. Tigraine’s brother had disappeared following one of the woman’s prediction – and the Daughter-Heir still trusted her?

Two handmaidens hovering nearby grasped what was happening before Morgase did but once she saw their rush, her reaction was immediate: she grabbed the baby from Tigraine’s arms as the Daughter-Heir was slumping down on the marble bench, as if the world had spun before her eyes. As the women were bustling about with water and salts to help their mistress, Morgase stepped back, away from their path, and since she could not go away, she looked at the child she was holding.

She had never touched a baby in her life and this one, she did not find very likable. He was disturbingly small in her arms and squirming too much and she held him tight _. I’m trying not to drop you_ , she thought. And you can cry all you want. But he did not start crying and in a few moments, she realized that the warmth coming from him into her was not unpleasant at all. She carried him under the rose bushes and picked a white rose to show him, just like Tigraine had done but then she frowned. White roses were very beautiful but she had forgotten that they had no vivid scent, no life. _I’ll show you red roses, little one,_ she thought as she walked towards the red bush because she had some time before returning him to his mother. _I’ll show you the colour of life._

“Give him back to me,” Tigraine said sharply. “Now!”

Morgase did; when she reached the arch that would lead her out of the garden, she had already forgotten about this occasion.

It would be many years before she remembered it and wondered if Tigraine had had some foreboding.


End file.
